


touches my foolish heart

by brandyalexanders



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Crushes, F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-21
Updated: 2016-07-21
Packaged: 2018-07-25 19:41:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7545513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brandyalexanders/pseuds/brandyalexanders
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>erin ruminates on her crush on holtzmann ft. entirely too many references to late 80s/early 90s sitcoms and slow dancing in the kitchen</p>
            </blockquote>





	touches my foolish heart

**Author's Note:**

> i'm operating on the assumption that they all live together, which if they don't, they should. i really like holtzbert and i might write more but please accept this for now! if you wanna cry about these sweet lesbians my tumblr is rcservoirdogs :~) also in case anyone was wondering this is the song, and also the namesake: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9ZGKALMMuc

Erin is sitting on the floor and watching Golden Girls reruns with Holtzmann and allowing her to paint her nails a very unprofessional neon green when she realizes that maybe her feelings for her engineer friend aren’t strictly platonic. She looks away from Bea Arthur and watches Jillian stick her tongue out in concentration, dipping the brush in the bottle and then coating every centimeter of Erin’s nails in the bright color. She’s holding Erin’s fingers gingerly in her other hand and the contact makes her feel a little embarrassed, what with her sudden revelation. 

“There you go,” Holtz says eventually, leaning back to admire her handiwork. She gives it a good once-over and then does her wink-smirk thing at Erin. “Oh, I love this episode,” she mentions nonchalantly, as if she hadn’t shaken all of Erin’s foundations with a single facial expression like some kind of exceedingly gorgeous hurricane. 

“It's one of my favorites,” Erin breathes once she regains some composure. She doesn't actually know which one it is, but try as she might, she can't stop watching Jillian long enough to find out.

\--

Erin has never thought of herself as anything but straight, though if she’s completely honest she’s never really thought of herself as anything. There have always been more important things in her life than dating; first it was ghosts, then it was college, then it was establishing a solid academic reputation, and then it was ghosts again. Sure she wondered about relationships. At the same time, though, she’d always wanted to be a scream queen more than a leading lady in a romantic comedy. 

Either way, she’s less straight than she imagined. And possibly in love with Jillian. She relays this (minus the final clause) to Patty one morning because Abby will probably roll her eyes and remind her of all the years she spent obsessing over Nancy in A Nightmare on Elm Street, and she can’t tell Holtzmann for obvious reasons. 

“It’s nice that you’re starting out on a journey to self-discovery,” Patty says, voice muffled by the sheets as she rolls over in bed, “but it’s five in the morning and I haven’t had nearly enough sleep to go down that road with you.” 

Erin apologizes quietly and retreats out of the room, resolving to buy her ice cream the next day to make up for it. 

\--

“So, Holtzmann,” Patty says around a spoonful of neapolitan. 

Erin tries to snort disarmingly. “What? I never told you that.” She’s picking at her sundae and avoiding eye contact. “Me and Holtzmann, what?” 

Mercifully, Patty doesn’t make fun of her flustered display. “It makes sense, I guess. You guys have kind of an Urkel and Laura thing going on.”

“A what?” 

“You know, from Family Matters. She’s like, the injury prone science nerd with a huge crush on you, and you’re the objectively pretty girl-next-door type that runs all hot and cold but eventually realizes her feelings.”

“I’m a science nerd, too,” Erin says, then, “do you really think Jillian is interested in me?” She racks her brain trying to find evidence. 

“But she’s better at inventing things.” Patty finishes off her ice cream and shakes her head. “Jesus, no wonder it took you forty years to have your big sexuality freak-out. You are just totally clueless.”

“And here I thought we were talking about Family Matters.”

“Don’t change the subject. I will mix my references if I want to. That’s not the point, anyways. The point is you should tell Jillian what’s what. Maybe take her on a little ice cream date and let me and Abby do our work, because at least someone in this family has got to be battling the forces of evil.” 

\--

The problem is, Erin has never made a love confession to anyone. She sits down at her desk with a pen and a college-rule notebook and tries to brainstorm how she could do it. This can be approached logically. She starts with gifts she could give to soften the blow. She writes _Flowers?_ and crosses it out a second later, because Holtzmann would ultimately find a bouquet of roses useless. _Plutonium_ , and crosses that out as well. She loves Jillian, but she doesn’t trust her not to end the world in a well-orchestrated explosion. Also, she has no idea where to find it. 

There has to be something she’s missing here, maybe some hint in one of their late-night conversations that will show her what to do. She thinks really hard about all the time the two of them have spent together, watching old sitcoms and Ghost Adventures and Friday the Thirteenth sequels, dancing above the Chinese restaurant and later in the lab of their fancy new headquarters, commiserating over their awful sleep schedules when they meet in the kitchen at 3 A.M. on more than one occasion. Erin rests her hand in her chin and she’s so deep in thought that she doesn’t notice Jillian standing over her shoulder. 

“Interesting grocery list.” 

Erin startles a bit and turns her head. “Huh?” Jillian points at the neat scrawl on the paper, and Erin is thankful she hadn’t written anything too embarrassing on it. “Oh. I was just doing some research. You can’t even buy plutonium at the grocery store, that’s silly.” There’s no good way to support the claim, so she crosses her arms over her chest and deflects. “I thought you were working on something new?”

“You bet. I just need an extra set of hands.” She picks up her goggles from where they’re tucked into her shirt pocket and puts them back on. “If you’re busy, though, I’ll leave you to it.”

“No, no, I’d love to help out!” She’s already out of her chair, shutting the notebook and tucking her pen behind her ear. “I can be your Igor.”

“You’re a lot nicer to look at than Igor is. More like Igna, I think.” 

Erin isn’t sure if this counts as flirting or not. She feels flush anyways, and Holtzmann draping herself over her shoulders on the way to the next floor doesn’t help. When they’re halfway up the flight of stairs, Erin gets bold and sneaks her arm around her waist. They stay like that until they’re in the lab and Holtzmann breaks away to pick up something that is an alarming shade of green. 

“Hold this for me. Just, uh, put on a couple pairs of gloves first.” 

\--

It’s just not fair. Telling a girl you’re in love with her shouldn’t be so impossible, but Erin still has no idea where to start. She pines and steals secret glances at Jillian whenever they’re together, and she thinks about what it would be like to kiss her, and she tosses in bed trying to come up with an answer. 

One night she kicks the blankets off of her and goes down to make a cup of tea for her nerves. Her heart attempts to leap and sink at the same time when she sees Holtzmann perched on the counter, playing music quietly from somewhere that Erin can’t see and drinking from a #1 Boss mug. 

“Where’d you get that? Last I checked you were not the boss.” 

Holtzmann looks like she’s just noticed Erin. She rotates the mug in her hand and shrugs. “I stole it from the old dean,” she says finally. “You want a cup of tea?”

“You must have read my mind.”

Jillian hops off the counter without spilling any of her drink, which she only sets down when she pours out a new cup from the kettle. She slides it across the counter to Erin and grins. “One tea for the lady.” 

Erin thanks her and takes a sip. She’s just relaxed against the counter when Holtzmann turns up the music. Because her music taste spans decades, the musical stylings of Frank Sinatra fill the air at a volume that the other women in the firehouse would probably disapprove of this late at night.

“Care for a dance?” she asks with a fancy affect that’s silly and makes Erin laugh. She places her hand in Jillian’s and lets her pull her away from the walls and towards the center of the wide, open room. And then Jillian has her fingers on Erin’s hips, firm and careful from years of work, and Erin rests her hands on Jillian’s shoulders, and they’re swaying to Sinatra in a reserved sort of way that Erin wouldn’t expect from Jillian. It’s nice. Her heart is beating hard enough that Jillian has to hear it, being this close, but she can’t calm herself down. She finds it pretty impressive that she’s gone this long without stuttering or making an excuse to leave. 

Jillian never does anything with any sort of hesitation, so Erin really shouldn’t be surprised when she rests her head on her shoulder and hums along with the song under her breath. Her blonde hair brushes Erin’s nose and, besides motor oil, she smells like nice shampoo and men’s cologne. Erin sighs. 

“What’s on your mind tonight?” Holtzmann stops singing but she doesn’t lift her head. 

Erin thinks, maybe she should make something up. She looks at Jillian, the way the fluorescent light bulbs on the ceiling make her look so bright and vibrant. The music is just right and there’s nobody else around and they’re pressed together and dancing. And she knows it’ll be easier to tell the truth. That maybe now is the very _best_ time to tell it.

“I think I’m in love with you,” she admits into Holtzmann’s hair. 

“That’s funny.” She finally lifts her head, blinding Erin with her high-wattage smile. “I was just thinking the same thing.” 

“You’re in love with yourself?”

“To a degree.” Holtzmann tilts her head. “I was thinking about kissing you.” 

“You should. Kiss me, I mean.” 

“You got it, sugar.” 

Holtzmann is as enthusiastic about kissing as she is about everything she does, putting her whole body into it, sending electric sparks up Erin’s fingertips when their lips finally touch. Erin kisses back like her life depends on it. Like clinging to Holtzmann is all she can do anymore. She cups one of her hands around Jillian’s cheek. 

“Something like that?” Holtzmann asks when they’ve separated, just an inch or two between their mouths. Erin must be cross-eyed, trying to meet her gaze. 

“It was even better than I imagined,” she says. Jillian kisses the tip of her nose. 

“I think we’d better do it again. To be safe, you know.”

“Right. It could have been a fluke.” 

“Right,” Holtzmann murmurs, and she manages to back Erin up against a wall, her arms still strong around her waist. “Round two.”


End file.
